NEW YORK -- Hey, sometimes you get the lucky bounces and sometimes the other team does. At least that was the spin coming out of the Rangers locker room last night after the Blueshirts lost for the first time in this Hudson River playoff series.

John Madden's goal, a shot that deflected in off the skate of Rangers rookie defenseman Marc Staal at 6:01 of overtime, gave the Devils a 4-3 victory that kept them alive in the series. Afterward, the basic message from the Rangers was: Well, nobody said this was supposed to be easy.

"Those first two games, the lucky breaks went our way," Rangers captain Jaromir Jagr said. "Today, they went their way in overtime. They shoot it on the net and -- nobody said it's going to be easy, you know? It's going to be hard. We've got to take all the positives -- we still have the lead, 2-1, and the next game is at home."

Game 4 will be at Madison Square Garden, but not until Wednesday, which means the Rangers will have time to get over their lost opportunity to take a stranglehold on the series.

The wackiness started early, as the Devils took their first lead of the series on Sergei Brylin's goal just 3:01 into the game. Initially, referee Mike Hasenfratz waved the goal off, ruling that Brylin had kicked the puck in, but the play went to review and the officials in Toronto ruled that the goal should stand.

"It looked like it was a kicking motion, but I have to see it on tape," Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist said.

That was the start of a long night that was uncharacteristically filled with goals. The Rangers got the equalizer on Brandon Dubinsky's first of two goals before the period was over, and took the lead when Sean Avery scored a five-on-three goal in the second. Patrik Elias tied the score at 2-2 on a power-play goal of his own before Zach Parise gave the Devils the lead, 3-2, on a shot that hit the Rangers' Brendan Shanahan, then the stick of Lundqvist -- who was lying flat on the ice -- and then flipped up, hit the goalie's back and slid in.

"There were some funny bounces," Shanahan said. "Henrik, I would say, had some bad luck on those goals -- one went off their skate, one went off our skate. Another one I got a real good piece of and it seemed to crawl up (Lundqvist's) body.

"That's playoffs, though," he continued. "That's sort of how it goes. You put crowds at the net, you throw pucks at the net. Those plays, while you may call them lucky -- it is and it isn't. Those are things that players practice and things that we do intentionally."

Which was pretty much the way Rangers coach Tom Renney felt about the whole "bad luck" argument. Asked if the bounces that went the Devils' way were random or went to the team that deserved them, Renney picked the second option.

"I think it's the latter," the coach said. "We have to accept that. We've had some bounces ourselves. We haven't lost to these guys in regulation in 11 games. But having said that, it was a fortuitous bounce, but they did what they needed to do: They lost the draw (Dubinsky beating Madden in a faceoff), but they jumped it. They had people going to the net, we didn't quite have the body position we needed, and it was in the net.

"So that's the way it goes. You make your breaks, and luck always is on the heels of effort in more cases than not, so we understand that."